GEOLOGY. 317 



In the same strata Capt. Brickenden found a track of 20 footsteps of a 

 chelonian or turtle ; and in the lower beds of the Devonian, in Forfar- 

 shire, fossil eggs of frogs and aquatic salamanders have been discovered, 

 specimens of which were placed before the society. The great interest 

 of these discoveries is the fact that previously no vestiges of any rep- 

 tiles whatever had been found in the old red formation. Dr. Mantell 

 has named the reptile Tclerpcton Elginensc, to indicate its remote 

 antiquity and the place from whence it was obtained. 



NEW FOSSILS FROM THE DRIFT OF NORTHERN AMERICA. 



SOME additional fossils have, within a very recent period, been dis- 

 covered in the drift deposits of the northern portions of this country. 

 On the 29th of Jan., 1852, the laborers on the Great AVestern Railroad, 

 on Burlington Heights, Canada West, found part of the head and the 

 tusk of an elephant beneath the strata of gravel. The tusk measured 

 six feet nine inches in length, and thirteen inches in circumference. 



FOSSIL EGGS OF SNAKES. 



PROF. BLUM communicates to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society, England, an account of some curious bodies found in the fresh- 

 water limestone of Beiber, near Offenbach, Germany, and which he 

 supposes to be fossil eggs of snakes. In size they are 8 10'" long and 

 5 6"' thick. The ends taper off in so nearly a uniform manner, that 

 one end scarcely appears broader than the other. They are altogether 

 more cylindrical than the eggs of birds. Some specimens are here and 

 there somewhat compressed, which is easily accounted for by the soft 

 condition of the shell in a recent state. Externally, the surface is for 

 the most part rough, like a wrinkled skin. These bodies consist, gen- 

 erally, of calcspar, a thinnish rind of which supports the outer surface, 

 while the inside is more or less hollow, and covered with little calcspar 

 crystals. In one specimen, some of the calcareous matrix, in which 

 the eggs are found, has penetrated into the inside. In another, it 

 constitutes the whole substance of the fossil. These fossils are found 

 in a brackish- water limestone, easily distinguished, by its soft loamy 

 nature, from the strata above or below, and occur singly or in groups. 

 Thej r are associated with the shells, Paludina, and one or two species of 

 Helix. By some, these fossils have been supposed to be concretions, 

 but from their characters and contents, and from the conditions under 

 which they exist, all idea of their inorganic concretionary origin must 

 fall to the ground. Concretionary bodies are formed from within out- 

 wards, but in these exactly the opposite has taken place ; lime in solu- 

 tion has permeated the parchment shell of the egg, and has been 

 gradually deposited on the inside, and thus preserved the form of the 

 egg after the organic substance itself had disappeared. I consider 

 these fossils, therefore, to be eggs of snakes, perhaps of a coluber, de- 

 posited originally in calcareous mud, where an increase of calcareous 

 matter not only prevented the hatching, but furthered the petrifaction 



of the eggs. 



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